I recently made a change to my system that made a significant enough difference that I wanted to share it with the group .....

For the past several months, I have been listening to a pair of custom made (and one of a kind) Parker Audio Troll Magnus bookshelf speakers. The Magnus version employs an older model of the Heil Air Motion Transformer instead of the already superb ribbon driver found in the Troll Signature. These Heil drivers are no longer manufactured, but happily, the diaphragms are still available.

It is a very simple (but ingenious and tasty) speaker design. The 5 1/4" midbass driver runs full range with a single capacitor crossing the high frequency driver over well above the "normal" point. The effect is wonderful. The speakers are lightning fast, wonderfully detailed, yet smooth and throw a huge soundstage ..... totally disappearing with 99% of the music in my collection.

The speakers were originally outfitted with Hovland - MusicCaps, which sounded very good to my ears. However, per Parker Audio Dave's recommendation, I decided to empty my piggy bank and replace the caps with a set of Duelund VSF copper (virtual stacked foil) units.

Wowsers .....

The improvement was in the same ballpark as replacing the coupling caps with teflon V-Caps in the Decware Select amplifier. They are very open and revealing of detail, harmonically correct and transparent ..... with the ability to "sort out" and make space between the different voices and instruments in a recording. In addition, they have a wonderful sense of control, removing a small amount of "splash" in the top end that I had noticed with the MusicCaps. This is especially noticeable with some closely mic'ed female vocals .....

The caps are not cheap, but I can highly recommend them to music lovers who own a pair of revealing loudspeakers with simple crossovers. Duelund makes capacitors that are even more costly than these (the CAST version) ..... but I'm not sure that my heart (or my wallet) could survive a bigger improvement than I am hearing with the VSF version .....

I am fairly sure that there will be no further changes in my system, as well. I was deliriously happy with the system as it was with the Parker Audio Troll Signatures (ribbon version). One of the guys I work with who has been in the audio hobby for years as well as playing in several bands came to visit me a few weeks ago. After a several hour listening session, he stated that "it was the best audio system that he NEVER heard" clarifying the comment by saying that the equipment simply "got out of the way" of the music.

A couple of days after that, Parker Audio Dave found the pair of smaller Heil AMT drivers in his parts stash and asked me if I would be interested in checking them out. Remembering how good the top end was in the Behemoth speakers I owned before I had my illness, it was an offer I couldn't refuse .....

The new capacitors are icing on the cake for a pair of speakers I expect to keep for a long time.

I have owned a lot of audio gear over the years and heard a bunch of gear. While I have found it best to "never say never", I don't foresee any changes in the near future .....

Now, the plan is to follow your lead and build up my library of music ...